Paddy the Beaver was busy cutting down trees for the dam he had
planned to build. Up in the woods of the North from which he had
come to the Green Forest, he had learned all about tree-cutting
and dam-building and canal-digging and house-building. Paddy's
father and mother had been very wise in the Beaver world, and
Paddy had been quick to learn. So now he knew just what to do and
the best way of doing it. You know, a great many people waste
time and labor doing things the wrong way, so that they have to
be done over again. They forget to be sure they are right, and so
they go ahead until they find they are wrong, and all their work
goes for nothing.
But Paddy the Beaver isn't this kind. Paddy would never have
leaped into the spring with the steep sides without looking, as
Grandfather Frog did. So now he carefully picked out the trees to
cut. He could not afford to waste time cutting down a tree that
wasn't going to be just what he wanted when it was down. When he
was sure that the tree was right, he looked up at the top to find
out whether, when he had cut it, it would fall clear of other
trees. He had learned to do that when he was quite young and
heedless. He remembered just how he had felt when, after working
hard, oh, so hard, to cut a big tree, he had warned all his
friends to get out of the way so that they would not be hurt when
it fell, and then it hadn't fallen at all because the top had
caught in another tree. He was so mortified that he didn't get
over it for a long time.
So now he made sure that a tree was going to fall clear and just
where he wanted it. Then he sat up on his hind legs, and with his
great broad tail for a brace, began to make the chips fly. You
know Paddy has the most wonderful teeth for cutting. They are
long and broad and sharp. He would begin by making a deep bite,
and then another just a little way below. Then he would pry out
the little piece of wood between. When he had cut very deep on
one side so that the tree would fall that way, he would work
around to the other side. Just as soon as the tree began to lean
and he was sure that it was going to fall, he would scamper away
so as to be out of danger. He loved to see those tall trees lean
forward slowly, then faster and faster, till they struck the
ground with a crash.
Just as soon as they were down, he would trim off the branches
until the trees where just long poles. This was easy work, for he
could take off a good-sized branch with one bite. On many he left
their bushy tops. When he had trimmed them to suit him and had
cut them into the right lengths, he would tug and pull them down
to the place where he meant to build his dam.
There he placed the poles side by side, not across the Laughing
Brook like a bridge, but with the big ends pointing up the
Laughing Brook, which was quite broad but shallow right there. To
keep them from floating away, he rolled stones and piled mud on
the bushy ends. Clear across on both sides he laid those poles
until the water began to rise. Then he dragged more poles and
piled them on top of these and wedged short sticks crosswise
between them.
And all the time the Laughing Brook was having harder and harder
work to run. Its merry laugh grew less merry and finally almost
stopped, because, you see, the water could not get through
between all those poles and sticks fast enough. It was just about
that time that the little people of the Smiling Pool decided that
it was time to see just what Paddy was doing, and they started up
the Laughing Brook, leaving only Grandfather Frog and the
tadpoles in the Smiling Pool, which for a little while would
smile no more.